ABSTRACT
Buenos Aires’ inhabitants proudly introduce their city to visitors by enumerating records. Taking a taxi from the international airport to the city centre, everyone will learn that the Plate River is the broadest river crossing an agglomeration in the southern hemisphere or that 9th of July Avenue is the widest urban avenue crossing the densest central business district (CBD) in South America. By the late 1990s the Argentinian capital had notched up two more records: the widest metropolitan motorway on the subcontinent (16 lanes) links the dense city centre with Nordelta, Latin America’s largest gated development. As we shall indicate, the so-called town-village (CiudadPueblo) of Nordelta contrasts with the rest of the 14-million-inhabitant mega-city, in which approximately 60 per cent of the population live on a daily income less than one euro.
